


every form of refuge has its price

by yuuki_Illene



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Other, Pining, love is blind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 19:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuuki_Illene/pseuds/yuuki_Illene
Summary: His love for Matt Murdock blooms quietly like the flowers in his chest.Close to heart, and out of sight.2019 Marvel Rare Pair Bingo G2: Hanahaki





	every form of refuge has its price

When the petal falls from Loki’s lips, white like first snow, tiny like the blossoming of spring’s buds, it is just an ordinary day.

Matt stares ahead, mumbling to himself with a recorder he placed by his laptop, words punctuated by the staccato of his typing. The brightness of his screen illuminates his visage — the slight smile he tends towards which indents dimples into his cheeks, the slight chisel of his jaw peppered with half a week’s stumble, evidently a counter of days that he hasn’t appeared in court.

He’s terribly small when considering the largeness of his loft; how lonesome one man can be in the darkness, and yet—

When the petal flutters, softly, carried by its own imaginary breeze and onto his book, the God barely notices.

His sight is stolen; heart beating to the thought of being allowed to cup the smaller man’s face and lifting unseeing eyes, to see them dilate and contract. He yearns to feel sleek strength under the pad of his fingers and press his thumb into the hollow of his collarbones. Loki wants to heal the bruises on his neck and skirting around his knuckles, those livid purples on a man so determinedly mortal.

(He also wants to find those who dare a hand on Murdock, although he settles for the dark satisfaction that they have already been beaten when he sees the blood that drips from clenched fists and the maddening smirk the Devil wears.)

There are many things Loki has wanted. Priceless artefacts he had stolen. Books he had coveted. Lovers. The company of his children. A throne that was never his by birthright. Acceptance he had fought for but unlike campaigns, it was a war he could not never win.

In what has been eons, he sees more clearly about what he can and cannot take. He’s a trickster; a chaos maker; an entity who understands that within madness there is an order that allows both concepts to be differentiated.

So when he glances down and sees the petal, he laughs.

(It’s heartbreaking in its single note, his love manifested with the intent to mock him.)

Invisible roots have started to take form near his heart and in his lungs, quietly blooming. They’ll grow. They’ll nurture and feed on a love that has no receiver.

“What did you read?” Matt says in askance, curious about what riles such a reaction out of him.

Loki picks up the petal and presses it to his lips. “Nothing of consequence.”

He swallows the other petals that want to leave his throat.

…

It’s always fascination that first draws him to things.

Frigga had always teased him for his insatiable curiosity which led him to trouble more often than not.

That’s how his first stories begin: a young Loki sneaking into places he ought to stay away from and finding himself caught in odd situations. He learns to outwit and lie to win against those larger than him. (They always underestimate him.) He learns how to obfuscate; to disguise. What was once born out of necessity with a penchant towards tricks becomes his moniker — he takes what the Aesir term as dishonourable and turns it into something they have to respect even if they scorned it.

Like his defining curiosity, he takes all he finds — the knowledge, skills, magic, runes and swordplay — and makes them his. Loki, the Liesmith, his enemies hiss. Loki, the skywalker, they sing. Loki, the Father of Beasts, they say as they gaze upon his beautiful children, of glinting scales, dark fur and rotting flesh. Loki, the trickster, they warn while he smiles innocently at the sidelines. 

All these names… they’re his.

They might try to unmake him but they will not take away elements that are quintessentially his.

(In the bouts of his self-loathing, he conjures blue skin and red eyes, and the black marks that cut creases into his skin. He thinks of how much of a monster he is, how right they are to call him the Father of Beasts, and how fitting it is that his life is built on a lie.)

It should come as no surprise then, that when someone comes from a corner bend to punch an unruly thug trying to make off from him (nevermind the fact that explosions would barely faze him even when his powers are restricted), Loki would be fascinated with the vigilante.

An unconventional one too, by all accounts; dressed in dark clothes that offer little beyond shadow-hiding, rope twined around his hands and a scarf to cover the wrong half of his face. It was appalling, frankly, to have his person defended by such a shoddy mortal.

Alas, Matt Murdock proved to be an interesting specimen as a carrier of blind justice.

Defence Attorney by day, Vigilante by night; a skilled wordsmith who oftentimes chooses to use his fists to speak when the law fails to account for the spectrum of greys. He epitomises Midgard’s personification of justice, who lifts a scale up high in one hand while dragging a sword behind her in another, and blinds herself from prejudices and biases. She is then, impartial, listening objectively and speaking out for fair ends.

(She also blinds herself to the evils happening in front of her, those sleight of hands, and she does not see those who walk around her judgement. She is wonderfully flawed, in which she slays in one definition.)

He is a beautiful contradiction; so willing to sue for peace and yet pursues violence to meet his ends.

How could Loki not be drawn to that?

His astuteness doesn’t hurt either.

“You’ve been following me.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “How could you be certain, for one as blind as you?”

“You don’t deny.”

“I do not,” Loki agrees.

“Why?”

_ Always the justifications _ , Loki muses. So eager for explanations, when there aren’t any to be found, not truly in substantiation.

Demurely, “You are a good lawyer to witness in courts, Mr. Murdock. And it's a rarity that anyone comes to my defence.”

Matt’s shoulders stiffen even though the smile remains on his face. Briefly, Loki thinks it’s a shame that his eyes were still hidden behind rose-tinted lens, even if the prop is symbolic. Loki taps audibly at the seat in front of him as a gesture for the lawyer to sit.

The chair scraps across the floor as Matt pulls it out to take a seat.  "I'm afraid we've never met."

"Oh, we have," Loki states. "You've just never heard from me, considering you were occupied in exacting justice rather than speaking. Coffee?"

"Black," he replies, distracted. "When?"

"Where else would the Devil roam other than Hell's Kitchen?" asks Loki, returning question for question. He lets his words sink in as he gestures for the waitress to bring another the coffee his guest requested.

Grip tightening around his folded cane and posture shifting from relaxed to threat, Murdock asks, "Just who are you?"

Loki smirks.  _ Finally asking the right questions.  _ "Loki of Nowhere. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

…

Like his fascination, his love grows.

The liesmith had told himself to squash them both - interests in mortals were too fleeting with their disturbingly short lifespans. There’s scarcely enough time to discover all the facets in an individual, and he would rather not be grappling for the vestiges of time.

Yet, Matt Murdock is terribly… horribly easy to love.

What should have ended at one meeting turns into more: it becomes days spent in a cafe, both of them enjoying each other’s company as they focus on their projects when there was nothing to say. It was intellectual conversations better had in the comforts of Matt’s loft when they were too passionate about their arguments, their turn of phrases akin to spun gold. It was stimulating and Loki hardly finds himself bored. Life with Matt Murdock in it is sweet like Greek ambrosia, and heady and high like Idunn’s apples.

There was so many facets to one man and Loki finds himself scouring as if he was parched with thirst.

Perhaps he is — he finds it hard to swallow when flowers lodge themselves in his throat. With every breath he takes, he smells the lingering fauna. When he heaves, it gives rise to gloxinias, deep purple petals edged in pure white, bell-shaped and in full bloom.

They used to be so small: first mere petals, then larger, colours mixing into lavender and veined in royal purple.

It was a love that was yet to be fully realised.

But the roots start filling every bit of his bronchi, following roads already paved by biology. Leaves sprout and tickle the edges of his lungs and it makes him  _ full _ . It reminds him for whom he breathes for, who he wants at every waking moment of the day. They lay on his pillow around him like a halo - a noose - and it sweeps them aside into a growing pile. 

There are days, however, where it gets harder.

It is the closest he gets to illness when he has to lean over a bin to retch them up, has to remove them because  _ it is too much _ . They fall tragically and silently like camellias, petals splitting from stamen on impact, left to scatter as if it were the true state of his heart. Sometimes Loki picks the most perfect ones out of the wreckage and wonders how it would be to present a crown made out of the bitter pieces of him, and bare it to a mortal who will not return his affections.

Gloxinias —  _ love at first sight _ . He supposes it is fitting that his love is an irony.

There’s no greater message of unrequited love for a blind man.

Part of Loki is gladdened by the fact that Matt Murdock cannot see. The man does not need to see the beginning of the buds at the back of throat. He should not feel the need to reciprocate to save him.

A God, even weakened, will not die from such an ailment. Not like mortals.

He might nurse these flowers for decades to come but they will fade with the passing of time. If he ever has to lay his loved one to rest, let it be in the most heartfelt way he knows how.

He loves Matt Murdock.

That is a fact.

“Loki? Is that you?” Matt asks out loud when he hears her open the door to his apartment.

(“You’re here frequently,” he tells Loki, no trace of lie present in his expression as he presses the key in his hand. “Take it, I feel better if you are allowed to be here even when I’m not around.”

His smile grows wider, making him youthfully sweet. “Besides, I trust you, and now I have someone to call if I ever forget the keys to my loft.”

Loki doesn’t tell him that he knows that Matt never forgets — he always places it on the drawer shelf when he comes in, and always makes sure it is in the first compartment of his back when he leaves.)

“Yeah,” she replies, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she takes off her heels.

“Your stride sounds different,” Matt cocks his head to the side, thinking. “Your voice is a few pitches higher as well.”

Amused, she replies, “That’s because I’ve decided to be female today.”

Eyebrows crease together adorably. “I just assumed…” his voice trails off.

Loki appreciates his restraint and smiles with petals buried under her tongue. “Odin did suppress my seidr, yes. However, there are some parts to it he cannot take away from me, lest he wants my life forfeit. Shapeshifting has always come naturally to me even before I mastered my seidr.”

Matt shifts his laptop off his lap and onto the coffee table. “And the gender switching?”

“There are days where I feel different and I suit myself accordingly,” she says, tone even. Prodding, “Does that bother you?”

It makes incredible amount of sense upon hindsight; the Aesir were always rigid in formation while Loki was fluid — not because  _ þat _ did not belong, but because  _ þat _ was never meant to follow Aesir standards, as Jotunn as  _ þat _ was. The Jotunn were unabashedly gender-neutral, finding comfort in transition and inconstancy. (The signs were always there, but Loki subconsciously chose the lie because he wanted to belong.)

Matt shakes his head. “I was just curious. This is the first time you decided to be female.”

Loki blinks at his admittance. “I suppose,” she allows.

With him, she tends to forget what the Aesir expect her to be. She is just  _ Loki _ .

“How do you look like?” Matt asks idly.

Feeling bold, she declares, “Why don’t you feel it for yourself?”

His eyes subconsciously search for her visage. “Can I?”

“You may. I have granted you my permission.”

Despite her assurances, he lifts both of his hands into mid-air. Loki shifts herself closer, taking them to guide it to her face. She basks in his warmth and not for a moment more, letting him roam around the lines of her features.

His calloused fingers skirt below her chin while he thumbs her high cheekbones. He thumbs under her eyes. “Colour.”

“Green like jealousy.”

“As a blind man, I’ll tell you that feelings have no colours,” says Matt, wry. “Your hair?”

“Black.”

His right hand plays with a tendril before it trails down her long braid. “Must be beautiful.” His other hand rests on her lips. “I thought it’d be thinner,” he comments quietly.

Her larynx opens and it takes everything for to not spit out another flower. Her lungs scream for her to profess but she grits her teeth, gnashing at it until she tastes plant and blood in her mouth. A small flame sparks in her throat and she burns these welling flowers until there’s nothing left of it but ash. (They cannot wrest away her fire as much as she is ice.)

Loki knows that Matt can smell the burning, can taste the rise of temperature in the air and hear the beginnings of a thunderous lie.

“Loki?” Murdock says, alarmed.

“They’re thinner when I’m male,” she rasps. “You’re not wrong on that count.”

His hand drifts to his throat. They’re the same temperature now. Maybe she’s warmer. “It’s burning,” he says quietly.

_ That’s not the only thing that burns _ , Loki thinks, trying to slow her quickening inhales. Everything tends to taste like ashes in her mouth.

It’s what defeat tastes like.

She moves away.

…

If Loki ever thought that distance would help, he’s sorely mistaken.

_ Distance makes the heart fonder,  _ mortals liked to preach and for once, he agrees that they are onto something.

Perhaps the God has misjudged them — shorter time spans meant that they have to speed up the gathering of their wisdom, and they desperately record them on parchment and carve them into stone to pass on the precious knowledge.

They do write brilliant pieces of literature; countless tales of what the future looks like in technicolours and giving life by code and metal. They dream of mythical beings that are closer to some species than they realise, they reframe their history with the small scraps they have left. They are fascinating in the way they try to find patterns in phases and perhaps predict what might come. Their civilisations rise and fall so easily but there is a certain resilience in the way they rebuild, block by block.

Loki can admire that.

However, the ones he could stand no longer were those about found love.

Loki cannot bear to, not when he hurls flowers and blood all over the pages.

His self-made palace reeks of gloxinias and it is intoxicating.

Perhaps it will kill him after all, and end him where Odin failed to with his mercy.

(The trickster is aware he should not be alive after what he’s done to Jotunheim and Midgard. He should not have been  _ exiled _ , he should have been executed. He’s not disowned; not yet, but he is in the ways that matters. He’s no longer belongs to Asgard. He’d rather die than be an Odinson. Kinslaying ensures Laufey will be no part of him.)

In his lucid dreams, he hallucinates a motherly hand pressing warmly on his forehead. “Oh Loki,” her voice breaks, “My dear, sweet boy.”

Her touch drifts to his chest, the epicentre of heartache, his blooming disaster and tries to heal the hurts. There’s stems pressing out of his skin as if he were diseased, he feels them every time he clutches his chest to cough but he’s not willing to part with it.

“No,” Loki gurgles. They won’t take this twisted up love from him. Not after they’ve taken everything else. “ _ No _ ,” it bursts from him hoarsely.

(It hurts now, but the liesmith knows he will survive. He’s wept for many losses. He’s had the thorns of black roses tear at his throat, and screamed for death. He’s coughed a multitude of flowers - hyacinths, violets and carnations - so many times over the millennials of his existence and came out stronger. They will always sting, he learns, for that is the price of such an irrationality.)

“For someone who has never lacked in words, why won’t you ever speak?” Frigga grieves. She’s dressed in chrysanthemum yellows — of slighted loves and longevity and joy — and she insistently removes some of the flowers trapped in his chest.

He claws for them like feral animal, he burns in both frigidity and heat but Frigga will not stop. This is not the first time she’s seen her son love so intensely for that is the only way he knows how, and it won’t be the last.

She won’t take them out, root and stem. No--

Frigga cups a handful of his representation, these glorious gloxinias in their royal purples and truthful, pure whites, stained with heartfelt reds and put them in a water bed once he sleeps. 

She lets them live. 

…

When Loki comes to, he realises that it is no dream.

_ Nightmare _ , his mind whispers, as he takes in his room that is strangely clear of his purples and reds. His books were stacked high, waiting for a monster to sweep past them and topple them. The stench of blood hangs.

Matt Murdock sits in a chair at the edge of his bed, hands wrung together like he doesn’t know what to do with them.

His heart soars at the sight of him, and it is the only hint the mortal needs to know he’s awake.

“Loki,” he starts softly, tongue curling around the syllables of his name slowly, “Do you love me?”

Murdock had always been a hard-hitter; unrepentant in the way he conducts himself.

_ Lie. Lie. Lie. _

“I do.”

_ Too much, even though I know you’re not mine to have. _

“I do,” he croaks because that’s what he needs to say.

It’s all he can vocalise.

“Good,” Murdock murmurs. He leans forward and presses his lips on his earlobe first. “Then I won’t have to ask.”

His fingers paves the way to Loki’s lips, gently across his nose and down his cupid’s bow.  Then, he presses his mouth against the God’s and lets the gesture hold. Instinctively, Loki’s hands reach up to tangle his fingers with uncombed hair.

Physical affection was but another language, as were flowers, and he fervently hopes Matt understands his expression.

_ This  _ is what he can give: chewed up, scattered petals, grainy pollen and sharp stems. 

Pieces that accidentally hurt; a love that has consequences because some history does repeat itself. But Loki offers it anyway, and prays to the Norns it might be enough. 

“What are they?”

“Gloxinias.”

Matt sighs. A blush stays on his cheeks prettily.

“I never needed my sight to love you, Loki.” 

With that answer, Loki’s heart springs.

…

And much later, when Loki is loved and cured, he presents the last of his love flowers.

Matt holds them up, careful not to let it shatter.

He presses his lips against it, slowly, smile widening like a waxing crescent. He takes in the shape and scent before he lets it rest with the others on a water bed.

(And it keeps growing, it never ends.)

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta'd by the wonderful[kimannhart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimannhart/pseuds/kimannhart)!**
> 
> It's... something. I'm actually really proud of this one.  
> Thank you for reading :))


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